#alta adalrica

[thespleenoflorkhan]

...Jills are female dragons who repair and maintain the proper flow of time.

Alta is a female dragonborn whose main interest as a bard is recording history as accurately as possible.

[mismagireve]

Got a few of the fanfic question themed around time! Saturday, August, September, Tomorrow, and Yesterday (PS, sorry that it's a long list!!)

saturday: what gets you excited whilst writing?

When something comes easier than expected, or when I get an idea that really gets the ball rolling!  Alternatively, when I’ve just realized something that I think is very clever and I just can’t wait until everyone gets to see it.

august: are any of your fics associated with certain genres/artists/songs/etc? 

Uhhhhh.  I don’t think I’ve done a songfic before, but my Grima Series is named and themed after the song “Everything Stays” from Adventure Time.  As for stories I haven’t written yet but plan to, I do have some concepts for stories based on songs!

The Villain Of This Story, for example, is a concept based on and named after the song of the same name by Machinae Supremacy.

Oleanders In June is named after a line from the song “Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans” that I’d planned on having as a recurring motif in the story, since it’s based on the idea of longing for something that you could never go back to.

The series currently named Alta Adalrica Saves Tamriel has installments named after the song “Gently As She Goes”, which I encountered while playing Skyrim and loved so much that it singlehandedly transformed how I was planning on doing my Skyrim novelization.  Additionally, since the player character I was going to have as my protagonist is a bard, I’d planned for all the chapters of her story to be named after songs that I think fit the theme of what happens in that particular chapter.

On the flipside, the series Love Like You is named after the song of the same name from Steven Universe, but has no real relation to the song beyond the main theme of loving someone.

september: share a comment or review which still warms your heart?

Honestly all my reviews warm my heart?  But to pick a specific one,,,, a while back before i’d posted chapter 6 of He Who Invites, a very nice person had gone through all five chapters of the story at the time and left very in-depth comments of what they thought of what was going on in that chapter, what they felt like I’d done well, and what they thought were plot hooks and jokes for further chapters.

I honestly felt as flustered as I was flattered because I had no idea how to react to such enthusiasm and felt like they were giving me too much credit for some of the things they’d noticed.

tomorrow: favourite ways to write fluff?

Domestic shit.  Two or more characters doing something totally normal just to have a chance to show what their interactions are like, like Hero making Drakath a flower crown partly as a joke in Flower Crown, or the Batfamily being a family in The Bat And The Billionaire.  There’s a lot of fluff potential to be had in the everyday affection that a lot of us take for granted!

yesterday: favourite way to write angst? 

Generally I get an idea and just take it to its logical conclusion. Flowers for Mister Mind and Athazagoraphobia originally started as the ideas “What would happen if one of Billy Batson’s villains died?” and “What would happen if Miraak’s memory was subject to normal human limits and he didn’t remember all 4000+ years of his life?” respectively.

I also really like ambiguous endings when it comes to angst.  For example, the “Waking Up With Amnesia AU“ chapter of Prompted to Speak, which originally was posted here as a prompt fill, has an ambiguous ending that makes it seem very unlikely that the situation presented in the story is ever going to get better.

Another thing I like is having a regular story that swerves into angst territory with the last line, forcing the reader to reexamine the story they’d just read within the new context.  Let’s Stop Making The Mistakes Of The Past (And Start Making The Mistakes Of The Future)—which is nsfw—ends at a moment of horrific realization, leaving it up to the reader to imagine what happens next after Hero has put the pieces of the puzzle together.  The last line of A Day Like Any Other Without You builds on a plot point in the source material that the narrator isn’t yet aware of, and Athazagoraphobia combines this with the ambiguous ending for quite the 1-2 punch, if all the people that have been yelling at me in the tags are any indication.

And there’s all your answers!  No worries about the length, this was a lot of fun!  I am going to link to the original list though, so it’s easier for people (and me) to find though.

[thespleenoflorkhan]

By the time that Miraak arrives in Alta’s home, bloodied, broken, with a gaping hole in his chest that only just barely missed his spine even if it hit several of his organs, there are six children in the house.  Six tiny little strays that the last dragonborn has seen fit to welcome into her home, to say nothing of the adventurous stragglers that had been given keys and allowed to come and go at their leisure.

The adults he can deal with.  Marcurio is a braggart, but Miraak is well-practiced in dealing with their sort.  Ghorbash makes it strikingly clear that Miraak’s life is in Alta’s hands, and only the fact that she has not yet awoken from her wounds to tell them what his fate is to be prevents Ghorbash from squeezing his head like an overripe fruit.  Lydia and Jenassa express similar, though differently worded sentiments.  The other mages, Aranea, Illia, Erandur, the ones working on stabilizing the last dragonborn after the strain of teleporting home from the heart of Apocrypha nearly killed her—they tended to be too busy to talk much.

By the time Miraak awakens in Alta’s home, bruised, bandaged, and with a mix of stitches and still-tingling scars littering his skin, the six strays waiting around for their mother to get better have let their curiosity get the better of them, and swarm around the stranger in their midst with equal parts curiosity and enmity.  There was a chance that Alta’s rescue of Miraak would be her last after all, and they wanted to know if he would be worth it.

Years later, as Miraak helps Alta wrangle their children—Alesan, Aventus, Blaise, Lucia, Sissel, Sofie—all into bed with a kiss and a story each, perhaps they might’ve decided that he was.

[thespleenoflorkhan]

15 and 31 for dragonborn asks?

15. What is their personal LEAST favourite place in Skyrim- somewhere that annoys them, or comes with bad memories, or otherwise?

Objectively the place in Skyrim that has the worst memories for Alta are the abandoned house in Markath and Morvath’s lair outside of Morthal.  The House of Horrors Alternate Ending is canon to Alta’s storyline, so her encounter with Molag Bal isn’t as horrible as it could have been, but she still had to kill a Vigilant of Stendarr in order to not die—which is especially hard for her since she works fairly closely with the Vigilants.  She was actually delivering a Daedric artifact to the Hall of the Vigilants when she came to Morthal and discovered Morvath’s plot.  Which again lead to her almost dying.

Ragnbjörg doesn’t like the hustle and bustle of the big cities in Skyrim, especially Solitude.  Too opulent for her tastes, too unnecessary.  Her time in the Thalmor Embassy was especially hated due to it combining the opulence of Solitude that Ragnbjörg hated with a layer of judgement and suspicion from the high elves that would’ve set her instantly on edge even if she wasn’t coming to steal information from them.  Skyrim at large is not so different from Solstheim, which makes it easier to adjust to, but Ragnbjörg is not very fond if it on the whole.

31. VERY IMPORTANT BONUS QUESTION: In their opinion, who is the best dog in all Skyrim?

For Alta, her dog Meeko is objectively the best, though she is also partial to Bran and Sceolang.

Ragnbjörg considers Barbas to be the best dog in Skyrim by virtue of the fact that he can talk.

[thespleenoflorkhan]

for all the discussion and aus i have about my elder scrolls ocs, i sure as hell still haven’t drawn any of them that aren’t named alta adalrica

[thespleenoflorkhan]

rules: what does your character keep on their person? bold for always, italic for sometimes. then, tag some mutuals!

tagging: idk whoever // tagged by @simplymiraakulous

Alta Adalrica

➳ bag

backpack | messenger bag | pockets | satchel | wristlet | purse | duffle bag | briefcase | pouch | drawstring bag | fanny pack

➳ weapons

sword | dagger | axe | mace | warhammer | staff | spear | throwing knives | darts | shortbow | longbow | crossbow | arrows | bolts | enchanted weapon | poison

➳ apparel

light armor | medium armor | heavy armor | underclothes for armor | enchanted armor | mage’s robes | uniform | casual clothes | formal clothes | cloak | scarf | hat | helmet | gauntlets | bracers | gloves | shoes | boots | hood | mask | belt | coat | jacket | necklace | bracelet | ring | watch | undergarments

➳ health/magic

health potion | mana potion | stamina potion | attribute potion | alchemy equipment | herbs | chemicals | ingredients | bandages | burn cream | antidote | moisturizer | medication | scrolls | crystals | enchanting equipment

➳ stealth

lockpicks | probes | trap-making tools | trap-disarming tools | disguise kit | forgery equipment

➳ tools

pen | ink | charcoal | parchment | paper | compass | ruler | saw | hammer | nails | shovel | pliers | needle | thread | utility knife | art supplies | fabric scraps | kindling | magnifying glass | fishing rod

➳ provisions

rations for themselves | rations for others | fork | knife | spoon | serving utensils | pot/pan | water | alcoholic beverage | nonalcoholic beverage | pet food | drug(s) | sweets | coffee | tea

➳ personal

small amount of money | large amount of money | map | soap | comb | brush | cosmetics | hair ties | hair product | journal | razor | nail clipper | religious paraphernalia | tent | sleeping bag | blanket | pillow | sentimental item | comfort object | musical instrument(s) | toys | eyewear | identification | important document(s) | torch | book(s) | plant

[thespleenoflorkhan]

Alta adopted Aventus Aretino.  What else could she do?  Leave him to walk alone to the orphanage in Riften, with nothing to accompany him on the way there but the memory of what he did to his mother’s remains?  

She walked slowly into the house at first, having only entered because there was a murderer on the loose in Windhelm, and she was concerned if maybe the body everyone said was performing the Black Sacrament either had something to do with the deaths, or knew anything about them.  Alta didn’t begrudge him for mistaking her for a member of the Dark Brotherhood—she was wearing their colors after all—but told him as gently as she could that while she was not an assassin, she would be willing to help him out.

She asked him if he’d had something to eat recently.  He hadn’t.  She asked if he’d had something to drink recently.  He hadn’t.  She asked if he’d had anything at all.

Snow, he said eventually.  I’ve mostly just been having snow.

Alta clicked her tongue and pulled out some dried berries and figs for him to eat, then opened up her waterskin and asked if he knew where the kettle was.  They shared a meal of dried fish and hard tack, washed down with lavender blossom tea, before any talk of assassins or orphanages or “kindly” old ladies could ever take place.  She’d chided Aventus, likely, since eating too much too quickly when one has eaten too little for too long can do terrible things to the body, but he seemed to be fine.

Alta walked Aventus out of his empty home and set him up with room and board in Candlehearth Hall for a month while she traveled down to Riften to see what could drive a child to pray to the Night Mother.  She introduced Aventus to the innkeeper, made sure he’d get meals and baths and whatever else he would need while she was gone, and went on her way with the promise of coming back as soon as she could with news that the orphanage would see better care, whether Grelod was dead or not. Alta was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that Grelod was truly as cruel as her kenning was kind, but that didn’t necessarily mean the woman had to die.

Though she would, indeed, end up killing the old bag, albeit completely by accident.  She’d gone into the orphanage intending to speak with Grelod and discern for herself what kind of character the woman had.  She ended up slapping the woman when Grelod openly admitted to beating and starving the children, intending on calling her out for such poor treatment of the hold’s most vulnerable—only to call for the guards and the priests of Mara when Grelod fell like a sack of potatoes and didn’t get up.

The children were ecstatic.  The Jarl was less so.  It took the better part of three days for Alta’s charges to go from murder to assault to a justified act against an abuser that was much worse than previously reported, but three days was better than three years in prison.  Alta rushed as quick as she could back to Winterhold, picking up sweets to apologize to Aventus with since she’d promised to come sooner.

They were stale by the time she arrived in Candlehearth Hall.  He didn’t seem to notice.

Within the next few days, the Butcher had struck again and again.  Alta would catch him after a quick investigation, and pen a letter to the Vigilants to prepare room for yet another artifact of great and terrible power that she’d recovered during her travels.  She prepared to say goodbye to Aventus.  She headed back to the inn and shared another dinner with him of dried fish and hardtack, with lavender blossom tea to wash it down—and found she could not say goodbye at all.

After much starting and stopping and backtracking and sighing, what she ended up saying was “I’ve got a big empty house back in Solitude that I don’t know what to do with.  Would you like to come live there with me?”

And he did.

[thespleenoflorkhan]

miraak and alta did not fall in love.

being in love just kind of.  happened.

alta did not have any major issues with miraak.  at the least, none that she wasn’t willing to talk to him about.  while his actions in his quest to return to solstheim were objectively not okay, she could understand that desperation can drive a man to do many things, and that what one is willing to do isn’t automatically what they regularly do.

she considered him to be an interesting conversational partner in those days and weeks when the two were recovering from wounds sustained in Apocrypha.  she considered him a potentially world-changing reference for what life in the late merethic era was like.  she did not love him.  she barely knew him.  she wanted to know more.

miraak did have the one major issue with alta: by not only defeating him, but by accomplishing that which he had not, she had showed dominance over him, and while there was a part of his dragon soul that was willing to accept that he had been bested, there was a large amount of his human pride that rankled and hissed every time he remembered it.

he wanted, initially, to learn her strengths and weaknesses, and challenge her to a fight when they both were well, to see if a different outcome could be had, to see if he could recover his lost pride, his lost dominance over all of dragonkind.  he wanted a fight.  he got a fight.  but alta was very clearly still weakened from the mix of care and bedrest that she’d needed after escaping apocrypha (that she’d needed after saving him from apocrypha) that the win did very little for his soul and his pride.

beyond that... she didn’t mind the loss.  “physical therapy” the healer had called it.  their fights—their spars, eventually—helped her to recover.  helped him grow stronger.  helped them grow closer.  they fought not because they were two dragons vying for control, but two men easing the best out of each other.  they were not in love.  but they were growing closer all the same.

alta spoke to him about what he remembered and miraak asked her about what she knew.  he learned of the present, she learned of the past.  they found a common ground in the petty squabbles of men, the delegations and rules and customs that could all be done away with if you just say what you mean and fight when you want to.  she tells him of the meeting at high hrothgar and laughs at his frustration.  he tells her of the councils in bromjunaar and she cries at how people never learn.

they talk.  they fight.  they banter, and joke, and make fun of each other and the relative strangeness of their ways.  she takes him to the bards’ college.  she takes him to the mages’ college.  she takes him to labyrinthian.  he shows her the world through ancient eyes, and their understanding of the land around them and the forces that run through it grow.

she writes him a song.  an edda.  the story of his life, in all major points, laid out in verse for the world to remember, for the world to see.  she has done what he could not.  he is the first to ever hear his story sung back to him, and neither his pride nor his soul will not allow this to go unanswered.  she has given him a new song with a forgotten story.  and without thinking, he gives her an old song with a forgotten melody.

they sing to each other, a song of a dragonborn, four eras apart and four feet away, to meet in the center with something new.  they finish.  they understand.  they embrace.

they are in love.

[thespleenoflorkhan]

When Alta becomes the Arch-Mage of the College of Winterhold, she tries to abdicate it immediately.  She’s hardly a mage: the only school she has any real practice in is Restoration, and she doesn’t know much of that beyond some minor healing and whatever anti-vampire magic Isran was willing to teach her.  Hell, she’s not even all that great at the spells she does know.  She’s not an Arch-Mage, she’s a bard and a bowman.  Get someone else to lead the school.

Unfortunately, the Psijic’s will would not be denied.

So she ends up with a rotating schedule of spending at least one week of the month in the College to do whatever duties she feels like an Arch-Mage should be doing—reviewing reports, analyzing college funds, determining the proper course of action when things go horribly wrong—and the other three weeks of the month either at home in Solitude or in transit to wherever the hell else she needs to go in Skyrim.  She writes and reads countless letters of things going on at the College, and probably spends a small fortune sending couriers back and forth delivering them.

The College likely doesn’t consider Alta to be their best Arch-Mage, but she’s hardly the worst.  It helps that she generally spends the first day back at the college every month running errands around campus to try and make up for all the time away, and usually comes bearing a small stack of rare books found on her travels that could find new homes in the Arcaneum.  Time went on.  The College adapted to their new Arch-Mage.  She would be asked to help with shielding and warding spells by putting them to test with real weapons, would speak with the people of Winterhold as someone like them who put more faith in an arrow than a fireball, would look for artifacts and ruins and oddities on her travels that the College might be interested in.

Time went on, and as time passing in Skyrim tends to result in, there ends up being a dragon flying over the College grounds eventually.  The students and teachers pour out into the courtyard with their spells and their wards, fully ready to give their lives for each other if need be.

Then comes their Arch-Mage standing tall on the central building, with a volley of flaming arrows and a cold Shout of Joor Zah Frul!

Something very interesting happened among those at the College that day.  Alta had gotten into the school based on her healing magic, and largely spent her time as a student analyzing old ruins and texts to see what she could learn from Skyrim’s history.  Her response when attacked was to draw a mace, and her response when attacked at a distance was to draw a bow.  The faculty and staff might have known she had an interest in the dragon tongue and the word walls scattered about Skyrim—but they had never seen her Shout before.

They had never known she could Shout before.

The opinion of Alta as the Arch-Mage changed drastically.  It wasn’t very many groups of mages who could boast that one among their number was beholden to a form of magic so esoteric and specialized that one would have to spend almost their entire life to learn maybe a dozen Shouts of decent power.  As the Dragonborn, Alta had the capacity to learn all of them in only a few years.  Being what could reasonably be considered an expert in a poorly understood school of magic that had deep ties to Skyrim’s culture and history, it became pretty obvious in hindsight why the Psijic monk had named Alta the next Arch-Mage.

When asked about why she never mentioned her ability, Alta could only protest that she hadn’t thought it especially prudent information to give out.  The Thu’um wasn’t really magic, it was something else entirely.  It didn’t consume magicka, merely breath, and in her opinion had no real business being accepted as a substitute for magic in a school focused entirely around the study of magic.  Which was a fairly decent argument to make, but only made things seem even more impressive to everyone who knew why magic worked, not just how magic worked.

As a friend of mine put it: “Magic is the imposition of your will on the world utilizing the power of Magnus.  Thu'um is the imposition of your will on the world because you said so.”

[thespleenoflorkhan]

Miraak getting sprung from Apocrypha was an incredibly risky and dangerous move that had them both in critical condition for days (or weeks, in alta’s case) afterwards.  And even after getting to a more stable condition, neither of them were in much condition to leave the house, so they mostly just.  Talked.  It’s about at that point that Alta’s suspicions of the cultist’s orders to attack her were forged, because Miraak doesn’t even know her name.  He was still perfectly fine with killing her and eating her soul when they met, but he didn’t know jack shit about her until the first time she tried reading Waking Dreams.

For the most part, Miraak Does Not refer to Alta by her actual name.  Generally, he refers to her as Ahdaalriik, which is dovazhul for “hunter return gale”.  He does this mostly just because he initially misunderstood/misheard her when she told him what her name was and the moniker just kind of stuck.  It kind of fits her though—she's a hunter of dragons, men, and stories; she leaves to travel all the time but always comes back; her arrows and her voice fly fast and hit hard, while she herself comes and goes like the wind.  Alta was kind of annoyed at first, but like, it’s basically still her name anyways, so it’s not that important.  She just deals with it.

To Alta’s knowledge he’s never really made any comments about her name beyond just mishearing it.  This is not true.  During recovery when she first told Miraak her name, Miraak just kind of looked out of the door at all the people and animals living in her house, and just quietly said Aaltah to himself—which means the possibility of, or desire for, a pack of wild animals.

He thought it was fitting.

[thespleenoflorkhan]

When Alta—she hadn’t intended to formally adopt Aventus Aretino, but there was really no other word for what she’d done but that—when she brought him home to live with her, she thought that would be the end of things.  Let her housecarl Lydia know that there was someone else she should be prepared to lay down her life for if need be, let the various other stragglers she’d somehow managed to bring home know there would be another body in another bed soon.  Aventus had a few days to settle in and after that she went about finding him a tutor to teach him what he’d need to know while she was off travelling Skyrim and fighting a war.

Several weeks and a few dead dragons later, Alta arrived to Silian Manor and found not one, but two boys playing in her front yard.  A quick check-in with Lydia revealed that the second boy was Blaise, from the farm next door, and he and Aventus had become friends.  The check-in had also revealed that Blaise was an orphan himself, and apparently sleeping in the cold stables after spending most of the day working while the farm owner’s son slept in a warm bed after spending most of the day playing.

She hadn’t had much to say about that.  There wasn’t much to say about it, really, just a pointed hmm and a shared look between herself and Lydia.  Blaise was asked if he would like to spend the night in the manor with Aventus while she went over to the farm to have a talk with Katla.  When she returned, the boy would be staying for many more nights to come.

[thespleenoflorkhan]

i keep wanting either a modern au, or an “everything is the same except there are cellphones” au, literally for no other reason than to have this exchange

miraak: why am i in your phone as “west virginia mountain mama”? alta: country roads take me home to the place where i belong miraak: miraak: what the FUCK does that mean?!?!

[thespleenoflorkhan]

mmmmmmmmmmmmfeel like developing some ocs

i have some more thoughts regarding tisiphone that i haven’t posted yet, but it also feels too long since i posted anything about alta or ragnbjörg

yall have any preference?

[thespleenoflorkhan]

alta goes through like four or five different bows during her adventures in skyrim, but after picking up the bow of auri-el in the chantry, it’s pretty much the only bow she uses for the rest of her life.  it’s dependable, it’s enchanted against undead, she doesn’t have to worry about it breaking, and the fact that she even has it in the first place is infuriating and terrifying to the thalmor.

like, think about it from their perspective.

one of the races of man, not even a “lesser” elf but a man, is wielding the bow of their chief god, the bow that was thought to be lost with the snow elves.  she shouldn't be able to touch such an artifact, much less wield it.  and she especially should not be able to wield it against them.

but yet...  auri-el has made no move to relinquish the bow from her.  auri-el has made no move to render the bow useless to her—on the contrary, auri-el blesses her arrows with holy fire, her sunhallowed arrows with holy light, just as the stories say he would.

could it be that auri-el deems this mortal worthy?  could it be... auri-el approves?  and if he does...

what does that say about his feelings towards them?

[thespleenoflorkhan]

Alta’s Misadventures With The Vigilants of Stendarr

Alta isn’t the kind of girl to seek out the power of the artifacts, but unfortunately for her, she keeps stumbling into Daedric Fuckery and gets them whether she wants to or not.

She gives them to the Vigilants of Stendarr for safe keeping, which quickly leads to its own brand of fuckery.

[thespleenoflorkhan]

going through screenshots i’d taken, so maybe expect a small spam

alta was performing at the new gnisis cornerclub (i do not remember which song, but it was probably either one of the songs from morrowind or malukah’s “reignite”) and miraak just stood there for a while looking at her

i like to think he was just transfixed by her playing :,^)